Iliad. XVII. 426.
“Ancient poesy frequently associated nature with the joys and sorrows of man.” Gorresio.
So dying York cries over the body of Suffolk:
“Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!
My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast.”
King Henry V, Act IV, 6.
It would be lost labour to attempt to verify all the towns and streams mentioned in Cantos [LXVIII] and [LXXII]. Professor Wilson observes (Vishṇu Puráṇa, p. 139. Dr. Hall's Edition) “States, and tribes, and cities have disappeared, even from recollection; and some of the natural features of the country, especially the rivers, have undergone a total alteration.… Notwithstanding these impediments, however, we should be able to identify at least mountains and rivers, to a much greater extent than is now practicable, if our maps were not so miserably defective in their nomenclature. None of our surveyors or geographers have been oriental scholars. It may be doubted if any of them have been conversant with the spoken language of the country. They have, consequently, put down names at random, according to their own inaccurate appreciation of sounds carelessly, vulgarly, and corruptly uttered; and their maps of India are crowded with appellations which bear no similitude whatever either to past or present denominations. We need not wonder that we cannot discover Sanskrit names in English maps, when, in the immediate vicinity of Calcutta, Barnagore represents Baráhanagar, Dakshineśwar is metamorphosed into Duckinsore, Ulubaría into Willoughbury.… There is scarcely a name in our Indian maps that does not afford proof of extreme indifference to accuracy in nomenclature, and of an incorrectness in estimating sounds, which is, in some degree, perhaps, a national defect.”
For further information regarding the road from Ayodhyá to Rájagriha, see [Additional Notes].
It was the custom of Indian women when mourning for their absent husbands to bind their hair in a long single braid.